There have conventionally been shops providing a photo print service. In these shops, an automatic printer, by which images recorded in a film are printed on photoic papers so that photos are developed through the processing, is provided, and by using the automatic printer, the shops develop photos from exposed films brought by a customer. Also, due to popularization of digital cameras, there has recently been a service of printing photos from images which are taken using a digital camera, by means of an automatic printer corresponding to digital printing.
Moreover, popularization of personal computers has created demand of storing taken images as digital data. For instance, generally digital cameras store images in flash memories such as a flash EEPROM. However, since the flash memories are relatively expensive, there has been a demand of transferring image data in the flash memories to other less expensive storing media.
One of the most popular and inexpensive storing media is floppy discs, however, the capacity thereof is small. Since the performance of digital cameras has been improved, the amount of data per one image has been increased so that floppy discs are not suitable for storing such a large amount of image data.
One of the media which is capable of storing relatively large amount of data and has versatility is CD-R discs. CD-R discs, which can be read by CD-ROM drives attached to popularly used personal computers, are capable of storing relatively large 650-700 MB of data, and the price thereof is low. On this account, CD-R discs are suitable as a storing medium for storing a large amount of image data.
However, CD-R drives by which data is stored in CD-R discs have not been in common use, in spite of the growing popularity. For this reason, the shops doing the service of printing images also provide the service of CD-R writing.
This service is arranged as follows: When a customer brings in a flash memory in which images taken by a digital camera are stored, the stored image data is written in a CD-R disc. When the customer brings in a negative on which images taken using a conventional camera are printed, the images printed on the negative are converted to digital image data by means of scanning, and this digital image data is written in a CD-R disc.
As described above, in a shop doing the service of printing images as well as the service of CD-R writing, clerks carry out both the process of printing photos and the process of CD-R writing. In the case of the process of CD-R writing, it is easy to construct, for instance, a system in which a personal computer connected to a CD-R drive and the process is carried out following instructions displayed on the screen. In other words, when this system is provided in the shop and customers can freely use the same, the CD-R writing process can be carried out by the customers themselves with no involvement by the clerks.
However, when the CD-R writing process is carried out on the customer's part, the way of collecting the fee thereof becomes problematic. For instance, although the collection is certainly carried out when a device for collection is attached to the system of the CD-R writing process, this arrangement requires extra expenditure to attach the device for collection.